How a mid-season golf trip ended with Roosters in the rough

“Alright, boys,” said Victor Radley, “welcome to the inaugural Sydney Roosters Sunshine Coast Open.”

Dark clouds might be gathering over the NRL club this week, but the skies were crystal clear in early June when seven players gathered for the ultimate mid-season golf trip at the Twin Waters Golf Club.

The Roosters had the bye that round, which, happily, coincided with the King’s Birthday long weekend. So seven players – Radley, Chad Townsend, Sandon Smith, Hugo Savala, James Tedesco, Zach Dockar-Clay and Egan Butcher – took the opportunity to spend a few days in each other’s company on one of Queensland’s most picturesque courses.

Clearly, it was planned well. Courtesy of Drummond Golf in Stanmore, who Townsend said on an Instagram post had sponsored the weekend, the players were all kitted out in custom polo shirts, embroidered with the words: ‘INAUGURAL SYDNEY ROOSTERS SUNSHINE COAST OPEN, JUNE 5TH-8TH 2025’.

Little did they know that, a matter of weeks later, the trip would be caught up in a Queensland Police investigation triggered by the alleged actions of a player from their most hated rivals.

“One of the great weekends,” commented Dockar-Clay, along with a handshake emoji, under one of Townsend’s posts.

We would know even more about it, but a video documenting the trip was taken down from Townsend’s YouTube channel just as details were beginning to emerge about former Roosters star Brandon Smith’s alleged involvement.

It was on Saturday, June 7 – the penultimate day of the open – that Smith, who moved from the Roosters to the Rabbitohs mid-season, allegedly contacted a drug dealer to supply his ex-teammate Radley with an illicit substance.

Radley was allegedly in Currimindi, a suburb 30 minutes’ drive south of Twin Waters, at the time.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of Radley or any of the other players who travelled for the golf trip – just that Radley’s name appeared in a police summons outlining the allegations against Smith, and that they relate to that same long weekend.

The players were not unfamiliar with the course, designed by the late, great Peter Thomson and described as a “fairly flat, resort style layout with splashes of water and sand bunkers dotted in and around the wide fairways” by the Top 100 Golf Courses website. For the record, the track – while boasting a solid 4.5 out of five rating – doesn’t rank in their top 100 courses in Australia.

The Twin Waters resort was one of three “hubs” in Queensland (remember those?) that accommodated NRL teams during the 2021 COVID-affected season. Four teams were based there, with a bride-to-be and their family reportedly kicked out to accommodate them.

The Roosters were one of them, and spent 14 days in managed isolation upon their arrival. Smith was also based there the year before with the Melbourne Storm, though he was in Sydney during the golf trip having signed with the Rabbitohs, and evidently didn’t get the call-up for the Sunshine Coast Open.

In 2020, Canberra coach Ricky Stuart revealed that his Melbourne counterpart Craig Bellamy had vowed to run naked around the golf club had the Storm lost to the Raiders. Bellamy, though, denied he’d even spoken to Stuart and, in any case, the Storm won.

Steve Hutchison, the genial general manager of Twin Waters Golf Club, said he had spoken to the Roosters group at his venue in June.

“They were perfectly behaved. Paid, played, did everything perfectly fine,” he said. “We’ve never had any issues with them at all.”

Hutchison said the area was a hotspot for football teams looking to unwind, with clubs often booking out the Novotel Hotel about a five-minute drive away.

“Some of them are very good golfers,” he added. “It’s their day off with their mates … they take it about as seriously as you or I would if we were having a few drinks.”

Of the seven players who travelled to the Sunshine Coast, only one was not in the Roosters’ team for their 12-8 victory over the Newcastle Knights in round 15 the following weekend.

The sole absentee was Townsend, who was omitted from their NSW Cup team – presumably to allow him to go on the golf trip – but was back playing reserve grade the next weekend, converting four of the Roosters’ five tries in a 28-6 win against the Knights. Weeks later, he announced he would retire from rugby league at the end of the 2025 season.

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